The Harper's Quine (19 page)

‘Like a privy,’ said Gil. ‘And something else as well.’

‘She’d void herself,’ Mistress Hamilton pointed out practically, and wiped her eyes again.

‘Mally must have washed that off,’ Alys said. Gil leaned
over the corpse, sniffing.

‘It’s on her hair; he said finally. ‘Mally wouldn’t wash
that. It smells of …’ He tested the air again. ‘Aye, like
a privy. Stale. Not from when she voided herself but
older, like the spillage outside a dyer’s shop. But there’s
something else.’ He frowned. ‘It’s familiar, but I can’t
place it.’

Maistre Pierre came forward curiously, peered at the wound, and sniffed cautiously at the lank brown locks
coiled by the dead girl’s shoulders.

‘How did she wear her hair?’ he asked, and sneezed.

‘Like any other lass,’ said Mistress Hamilton. ‘Loose
down her back, with a little kerchief tied over it for going
outside.’

‘Is her kerchief here?’

‘It’s yonder,’ said the maidservant still standing by the
wall, pointing at the side of the room. Gil looked around,
and found a pile of garments on a barrel.

‘Is this it?’

‘Aye, likely. Yes, take it, if you need it.’ There were voices
out in the yard, and Agnes Hamilton turned her head.
‘That’s likely the serjeant. He sent word he’d come by
before he had his supper.’

Gil hastily folded the kerchief and stowed it in his pouch
as Serjeant Anderson proceeded into the store-room.

‘Good evening, maisters,’ he said, nodding. ‘What’s all
this then? One dead lass, as notified.’ He touched Bridie’s
cold cheek with a massive hand, twitched back the linen
shroud to look at the wound, and nodded again. ‘Aye, aye.
She’s dead, for certain. Between Sext and Nones, eh? A
wee foreign kind of knife, would it be, maybe?’

‘Maybe,’ said Gil despite himself.

‘Found in Blackfriars yard, you tell me,’ said the serjeant, covering the corpse’s face again. ‘Simple enough.
Knifed in Blackfriars yard this forenoon by some foreigner,
no doubt when she wouldny do his will. Murder chaud-
melle. A lesson to all Glasgow lassies no to take up with
foreigners. No offence, maister,’ he said belatedly to the
mason, who eyed him quizzically, and sneezed.

‘But is that -‘ Gil began.

The serjeant smiled indulgently. ‘See, Maister Cunningham, I’ve a burgh to watch and ward. I’ve no time to run
about the streets asking questions. Now, once I’ve called to
mind what foreigners are in Glasgow the now, I can lift
someone for it, and get a confession, and that’s the end
of it.’

‘But suppose he was somewhere else at the time?’ said
Gil helplessly.

‘Who?’

‘This man you’re going to seize for the killing.’

‘How could he have been elsewhere,’ said Serjeant
Anderson, ‘when he was in Blackfriars yard knifing Bridie
Miller? Now, I’ve more to do than stand around all evening. God save ye, maisters.’

He raised his bonnet to them, and left. Gil stared after
him, and Agnes Hamilton drew a gusty breath.

‘I must set someone to watch,’ she said. ‘The lassies are
barely fit for it, what with the last two-three days. Alys,
Maister Mason, Gil, I must not keep you. You’ve been good
neighbours. Candles,’ she muttered, leading the way from
the store-room. ‘Flowers. Would St Thenew’s send someone to watch?’

She ushered them out with incoherent thanks and shut
the door with great firmness behind them. Out on the step,
at the head of the Hamiltons’ handsome fore-stair, they all
paused, Gil watching the serjeant’s back retreating towards
the Tolbooth as he headed majestically for home and supper. Alys said, ‘I think she was no more than eighteen.’

‘Hush a moment,’ said her father softly. ‘Maister
Cunningham, look here.’

Gil turned to look up the High Street. There were not
many people abroad, although it was still full daylight, but
a few stalwarts drifted from door to door in search of
variety in their evening’s drinking. Among them, conspicuously sober and wearing a short gown of blue velvet
which must have cost a quarter’s rents, was James
Campbell of Glenstriven.

‘He has seen us,’ said Maistre Pierre. The comment was
unnecessary . Gil had also recognized the tiny pause in the
sauntering gait. He moved forward, to descend the forestair, and Campbell altered direction to meet him, waving
his blue velvet hat in a bow. The dark hair was receding
unkindly up his high forehead.

‘What, are you still at your questions? Don’t say you suspect Andrew Hamilton?’ he asked, with slightly artificial lightness.

‘No,’ said Gil, as Alys and her father came down the
stair behind him. ‘But someone suspected Bridie Miller of
knowing too much.’

The handsome, narrow face froze.

‘Bridie Miller?’ Campbell repeated. ‘Is Bridie dead? But
she - are you saying that’s the girl that was in St Mungo’s
yard?’

‘The point is that she wasn’t in St Mungo’s,’ Gil reiterated. ‘She had quarrelled with Maister Mason’s laddie
before Easter. Someone else was in St Mungo’s yard with
the boy, and not Bridie. Nevertheless, she is dead.’

‘Poor lassie,’ said Campbell, with a hollow note to his
voice. ‘What happened? When was this?’

‘She was found stabbed in Blackfriars yard,’ said Maistre
Pierre behind Gil.

‘Stabbed,’ repeated James Campbell. ‘Like Bess, you
mean? Then surely the same broken man or - When did
this happen?’

‘She never came back from the market this morning,’
said Gil.

‘Oh,’ said Campbell, his face changing.

‘Do you know something to the purpose?’ asked the
mason. James Campbell glanced at him and shook his
head.

‘She was found this evening.’ Gil gestured down the hill.
‘Are you for the lower town? Maister Mason goes home,
I believe.’

‘Poor wee trollop,’ said Campbell. ‘Had she been
forced?’

‘It seems not.’

Campbell looked about him, and frowned.

‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘I must away back up the hill. I am
forgetting. I - I’m to meet Sempill before Compline. Good
e’en to ye, maisters. Good e’en, demoiselle.’

He raised the hat again, bent the knee briefly and strode off rapidly up the High Street, the breadths of velvet in the
back of his gown swinging.

‘That is a very unpleasant man,’ said Alys, ‘and his eyes
are too close together, but I think he was upset to hear
about Bridie.’

‘I thought so too,’ said Gil.

Maistre Pierre tucked his daughter’s hand under his
arm, and drew her down the street, saying with rough
sympathy, ‘You go home now and help Catherine. She is
still praying for Davie, no?’

‘She is.’ Alys looked up at him. ‘What did you think of
that man, father?’

‘He was hiding something,’ said the mason firmly.

Gil, with a covert look over his shoulder, said, ‘He has
just stepped into Greyfriars’ Wynd. I wonder where he is
meeting Sempill?’

‘We have already questioned him,’ said Maistre Pierre,
‘and I can think of a better errand.’

‘Where are you going, father?’

‘There is yet an hour to Compline; said the mason,
glancing at the sky. Maister lawyer, are you of a mind with
me?’

‘We must find Annie Thomson,’ Gil agreed. ‘Thirsty, are
you?’

‘I knew I could depend on you.’ Maistre Pierre stopped
outside his own house, and patted his daughter’s hand.
‘Go in, ma mie, and we will go drinking. You will not be
shocked, I hope.’

‘Catherine says one should never be shocked by the
things men do,’ she reported primly. ‘I wish I could come
to the ale-house too.’

‘Now Maister Cunningham will be shocked,’ reproved
her father. She smiled wryly, tilting her face to share the
joke with Gil.

‘Women are always restricted in what they can do,’
she complained. ‘Like priests. You must make the most of
this visit, Maister Cunningham, for you won’t be able to
make many more. You should join the Franciscans or the Blackfriars instead of being a priest - they like the inside
of an ale-house, by what I hear.’

‘If we are not back, you do not go to Compline.
Understood?’

‘Luke and Thomas -‘

‘Understood?’

‘Very well, father.’ She kissed him. ‘Will you both come
in later?’

‘There is Mistress Stewart’s box to inspect,’ said Gil,
speaking quietly, although they were using French.
‘I would like to do that before the day’s end.’

‘Then I shall see you later.’ She smiled at him, and
slipped into the shadowy tunnel of the pend. The mason
watched her fondly out of sight, and turned to go on down
the hill.

‘Is the demoiselle truly only sixteen?’ Gil asked, falling
into step beside him. ‘She seems much older.’

‘She will be seventeen on St John’s Eve,’ said Maistre
Pierre. ‘Her mother was prettier, but I think Alys is a little
the wiser.’ He sighed. ‘Who would be a father?’

They passed the Tolbooth and Gil said, ‘What do you
think about this second killing?’

‘I think it is either connected or coincidence,’ said the
mason, ‘and I do not believe in coincidence. Well, maybe
I do,’ he conceded, ‘but not here. And you?’

‘I agree.’ Gil tucked his hands behind his back under his
gown. ‘The means of killing looked very similar. To get
close enough to kill in that way one must be trusted, or
much stronger than one’s victim, I suppose, and there were
no bruises on her wrists. I would have liked to look
further. I wish we had seen her before she was washed.’

‘Before she was lifted from Blackfriars yard would have
been better,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘And why was she killed?
She knew nothing.’

‘Either she knew more than she realized -‘

‘Or we, indeed.’

‘Or we. Or as I said to James Campbell, her killer did not
know it was the wrong lass. In which case we are respons ible for her death.’ They paused, looking at one another in
dismay.

‘Who knew we were searching for her?’ asked the
mason.

‘Your man Luke told Alys who she was,’ said Gil, pacing
onward. ‘All her household knew it when Alys learned
that she had quarrelled with the boy, although they may
not have been paying attention,’ he added, recalling the
scene in the Hamilton’ yard. ‘But she went on talking
about it. Alys said she was at the market today, very full of
her narrow escape.’

‘Poor lass,’ said the mason after a moment. ‘And little
older than Alys, by what Agnes says. So who could have
killed her? Do we look for the same person?’

‘Serjeant Hamilton is looking for a foreigner,’ Gil reminded him. We are hunting off our own land down
here.’

‘Aye, true. So would we be looking for the same person?
In hypothesis?’

‘In hypothesis, yes. The existence in the one small burgh
of two killers, with two causes for killing, using the same
means and method, is not a reasonable postulate.’

‘I saw John Sempill coming down the hill as I went up
this morning.’

‘When was that?’

‘After Prime? Maybe later. He and his - cousin, is it? -
the fair-haired man who came to the burial - they passed
the cross at the Wyndhead to go down as I went up,
talking loud about black velvet and leather for a girth. Did
you say Sempill works leather? Does he use a knife?’

‘Aye. I saw the tools, and some harness he was working
on. I would say the knife was the right shape, but too short
in the blade.’

‘I suppose so, but we should bear it in mind.’ Maistre
Pierre paused on the crown of the bridge to look down at
the water forty feet below. ‘We have not simplified matters,
have we? The more we look, the more complicated it
gets.’

‘My mother embroiders bed curtains,’ said Gil, and got
a startled look. He drew his companion into one of the
boat-shaped niches in the parapet as a late cart ground its
way up the long slope from the Gorbals side. ‘When the cat
gets at her thread, it falls into knots and tangles, and I have
to untangle it. The best method is to loosen this, and tease
at that, and the tangle gets bigger and takes in more
thread, and then suddenly you find the end and you can
unravel the whole.’

‘I see,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘So we are not hunting, we
are untangling things. Your mother is yet living, then?’

‘She and my two youngest sisters live on her dower
lands by Lanark.’ Gil leaned on the parapet, looking at the
green banks of the river in the evening light. ‘Let us
consider this morning. The girl who has died was at the
market,’ he said carefully, conscious of ready ears passing
as people crossed the bridge to go home or to go out
drinking. ‘We know that from several sources. Who else
was there?’

‘Most of the women of the burgh,’ Maistre Pierre
pointed out. Gil ignored him.

‘You saw two of - of the quarry at the Wyndhead. I saw
two more in the market.’ He gestured quickly, sketching a
man’s jack and helm, and Maistre Pierre nodded. ‘That
was just before I met the lady and her escort. Oh, and her
brother whom we saw just now. Assuming that her
waiting-woman was not -‘

‘Can we assume anything?’

‘True. Well, the waiting-woman was probably not in the
town this morning, since they had a funeral feast to
arrange, but seven others of the household were. The men
I saw were likely gathering information.’

‘Are they capable of doing so?’

‘I think we should not underestimate the wild Ersche
only because they do not speak Scots,’ Gil said. ‘They
think differently because their language is different, but
Ealasaidh for one is no fool.’

‘Because the language is different,’ Maistre Pierre repeated thoughtfully. ‘And any of these,’ he added, ‘could
have stepped aside into Blackfriars yard with that poor girl
and knifed her.’

‘Once again, we are faced with the same questions. Why
knife her? And why would she go aside to a secluded spot
like that with someone like to kill her?’

‘There is no telling what some girls will do,’ offered
Maistre Pierre. ‘My friend, if we do not proceed across this
bridge and find the ale-house, my tongue will cleave to the
roof of my mouth, and it will be too dark to find the door
of the place. Let us move on.’